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Category Archives: Project Research & Plan

Another difficulty I have had in writing this project has been sticking within the word limit. I feel that I could have easily written 10,000 words if I had been able to fully explore all of the topics I intended to include. This is probably a good sign and shows that I have carried out thorough and exhaustive research on the subject.

I feel that this will bode well for next semester when I have to create content for my final artefact. I have already been able to include a fairy extensive plan in my Gant chart, which will be extremely helpful in hitting the ground running next semester.

Whilst researching for this project I have unearthed an incredible amount of interesting, relevant information. Unfortunately there is only so much that can go into this report, so I am having to pick and choose the best information and subjects to go in. In order to produce the best and most effective report possible I have decided to edit my objectives down from five to four altering most of them a fair bit.

The objective I have decided to get rid of completely is objective three from the project proposal, which read “Explore the key known causes of honey bee decline by reviewing relative research and collating opinions directly from three specialists with a particular interest in the field by November 15th”. The reason I have elected to remove this topic from the report is due to a number of factors. Firstly, this area will be covered in minor detail in several of the other objectives. It is also a vast area due to there being around 10 very good reasons for honey bee decline, each of which would warrant its own investigation. Finally, many researchers suggest that even they cannot decide which of these reasons are most to blame for bee decline; LeConte and vanEngelsdorp both arrive at the conclusion that the decline is multifactorial.

In its stead I have opted to investigate two of the objectives in greater detail. They will be objectives two and three, which in their revised forms now read “Identify the importance of honey bees to the human ecosystem by identifying past, and potential, impacts on agriculture in a world without honey bees through a wide variety of informative sources.” and “Understand some of the actions being taken to improve the situation for bees, and how they will make a difference, by investigating urban beekeeping and bee-friendly planting.” respectively. These two objectives in their revised forms allow for greater investigation and a better final artefact. This is due to the fact that want the project to be reactive to the problem of the bees. As I have previously stated in the project proposal, I want the project to ‘enable’ the average person to make a difference, and I feel that by addressing the importance of bees and the positive actions people can take to make a difference, the project will be able to fulfil this aim.

I am currently half way through writing my report, but am finding it difficult to differentiate how I should be writing my literature review and my analysis/discussion. This is the first time I have written a report in this style and I find myself lapsing into an analytical writing style within my literature review.

After speaking with my peers, we all seem to be having some difficulty with this, but all have different concerns. I have decided to consult the skills 4 learning website and various other helpful websites in the hope that I will be able to come up with a few good rules to keep me on track.

Here are the rules I intend to set myself to ensure I keep in the correct frame of mind in each section:

Literary review: An organised collection of important relevant resources. Basically, summarise what people have previously said on, or around, the topic. Draw conclusions on these summaries, but do not discuss or analyse them.

Analysis/Discussion: Form arguments with conclusions drawn in lit review. Analyse these. How does the information support or challenge the objective? How well has the objective been met?

Conclusion/Recommendations: Highlight the findings made. What can be concluded from the arguments made and information found? Summarise what has been established. Will the project be good / viable / educational? How does the research inform the project? Recommend further research or paths for the project to take.

Hopefully these notes will help me stay on track and create a better report.

Below are the results of my online market research questionnaire answered by 40 people. The goal of this research has been to quantify how important the general public believe the importance of bees is to mankind.

What this research has managed to establish is that people generally believe the importance of bees to be reasonably high. The true value of these unique findings is in the answer to question 10, which I have arranged below question 1 as both questions are exactly the same. After answering the middle 8 questions, which are based on facts about bees, and learning the answers to these questions, people are again asked to rate how importantly they now believe bees to be. The results are conclusive. They find that on average there is an 18% positive shift in people believing that bees are more important.

I feel that these results are going to fit into my report perfectly and are a good sign that my project will be worthwhile in educating people on the importance of our bees.

After a lot of research via the library, where I found several journal articles, and the internet, I have realised that due to the relative recency of my subject I need to supplement my findings by purchasing Fruitless Fall by Rowan Jacobsen – a book which discusses many of the bee’s problems and the impacts they are having upon agriculture. This piece of literature has been brilliant at laying out a lot of the bees problems, although it does seem somewhat overly focused upon America.

Drawing information from this book and a number of other sources, such as helpsavebees.co.uk and much research undertaken by Dennis vanEngelsdorp, I have been able to collate a list of reasons for why the bees might be experiencing such heavy declines:

CCD – Colony Collapse Disorder.
The Varroa mite.
Viral/Bacterial issues (Nosema and Cloudy Wing Virus).
Forced in-breeding due to human-selected breeding, which can impact on the immune system and genetic strength.
Climate change & bad weather.
Monoculture farming (habitat destruction, ecosystem destruction, transporting bee hives around on trucks, so that they can be used as tools to pollinate crops).
Habitat destruction & fragmentation.
Beekeeper declines.

There are clearly a huge number of reasons why the bees are in trouble.

Agriculture, and more specifically mass production farming, is a huge part of the modern human ecosystem. I have been investigating just how important the bee is in this ecosystem, and I feel I have gained a good understanding that it is vital to us and our food production. Below are a few facts I have collated on this subject, which I intend to make the back bone of one research objectives.

A few facts:

30% of crops and 90% of wild plants rely on cross-pollination.
80% of the world’s agricultural crop pollination is attributed to the European Honey Bee.
Bees contribute £26 billion to the world economy via pollination.
Bees contribute £200 million to the UK economy.
Almonds are 100% reliant upon honey bees for pollination, whilst apples are 90% reliant.
Einstein once said “if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live”.

I feel that these facts will come in handy when I create my questionnaire to test the public perception of the importance of bees. Some of the figures are staggering, and I, for one, did not realise quite how important these little creatures are to us and the food we eat.

Up to this point, I have really enjoyed learning about the world of bees. I feel the subject I have chosen is really becoming something that I can gain a lot from. If I put my mind to the test and work as hard as I can on this project, then I am confident that I will create something which can be genuinely educational for a lot of people. I hope to make this project not just any other University project, but something that can make a difference – something to really be proud of.

Plagiarism is the other side of the ‘referencing’ coin. If you reference, then you don’t plagiarise. Pretty simple, really.

To make sure I am not at risk of plagiarising, I will be making sure to note down all books, films, websites, images, videos, etc, so that I can make a comprehensive list of material that I have been assimilating.